OSHAMA shaking hands with DICTATOR CHAVEZ......

[reno cool]

The reasons US and idiots hate Chavez are
1. he was popularly elected
2. he survived a cia backed coup
3. his highly popular in his own country
4. His country is an example of how to survive and prosper without selling out your people to western corporations.
For these reasons he's way worse than Hitler for American interests.

[losturmarbles]

The reasons US and idiots hate Chavez are
1. he was popularly elected
2. he survived a cia backed coup
3. his highly popular in his own country
4. His country is an example of how to survive and prosper without selling out your people to western corporations.
For these reasons he's way worse than Hitler for American interests.

so this is your socialist utopia?

Following a serious socio-political crisis, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has entered a phase of greater stability. Changes were made to the legal and institutional framework, including the establishment of a child and adolescent protection system. Forty per cent of the population is under 17 years old; a substantial part of Venezuela’s people are of African descent, and 2.2 per cent are of indigenous descent. The economy has shown significant improvements due to increases in oil prices and non-traditional exports. Social spending has increased and implementing social programmes has become a priority, mainly in education, health and social development. However, 60.1 per cent of the population, including children, adolescents and women, still lives in poverty and 28.1 percent in extreme poverty.
Issues facing children in Venezuela

• Infant mortality has been reduced, but maternal mortality is still high, even though 94 per cent of births occur in health facilities.
• At least 21 per cent of children under five are malnourished to some degree.
• Pregnancies among adolescents are common, and most are unwanted pregnancies.
• Thousands of children are left homeless and without school due to frequent natural disasters.
• Violence affects many children and women. In most of the cases, abuse happens at home.
• Children and families living along the Colombian border are affected by the armed conflict.
• Many children are left out of the school system, especially indigenous children and children of African descent.
• Thousands of children have not been officially registered at birth.
• The rate of vertical transmission of HIV/AIDS is estimated to be 3 per cent. The prevalence of HIV among 15-25 year-olds and among women has increased.

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/...ela_27098.html

[reno cool]

And this is supposed to show what?
That after centuries of western exploitation Latin American countries are impoverished?
No doubt that is true. Venezuela is taking positive steps, and have improved conditions. Whatever benefit was to be derived from oil went to the benefit of the country, not to line the pockets of a few opportunists.
Compare Venezuela's progress to others in the region and similar situation.

[reno cool]

look at it this way:

Following a serious socio-political crisis, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has entered a phase of greater stability. Changes were made to the legal and institutional framework, including the establishment of a child and adolescent protection system. Forty per cent of the population is under 17 years old; a substantial part of Venezuela’s people are of African descent, and 2.2 per cent are of indigenous descent. The economy has shown significant improvements due to increases in oil prices and non-traditional exports. Social spending has increased and implementing social programmes has become a priority, mainly in education, health and social development. However, 60.1 per cent of the population, including children, adolescents and women, still lives in poverty and 28.1 percent in extreme poverty.
Issues facing children in Venezuela

• Infant mortality has been reduced, but maternal mortality is still high, even though 94 per cent of births occur in health facilities.
• At least 21 per cent of children under five are malnourished to some degree.
• Pregnancies among adolescents are common, and most are unwanted pregnancies.
• Thousands of children are left homeless and without school due to frequent natural disasters.
• Violence affects many children and women. In most of the cases, abuse happens at home.
• Children and families living along the Colombian border are affected by the armed conflict.
• Many children are left out of the school system, especially indigenous children and children of African descent.
• Thousands of children have not been officially registered at birth.
• The rate of vertical transmission of HIV/AIDS is estimated to be 3 per cent. The prevalence of HIV among 15-25 year-olds and among women has increased.

[obama our lord]

No doubt that is true. Venezuela is taking positive steps, and have improved conditions. Whatever benefit was to be derived from oil went to the benefit of the country, not to line the pockets of a few opportunists.

Venezuela is doomed under Chavez


Venezuela's condition sure to worsen






There are two scenarios for Venezuela's future after President Hugo Chavez's victory Sunday in a constitutional referendum that will allow him to stay in power indefinitely: One is bad; the other is worse.



Both scenarios, as you may have guessed, depend on oil prices. Oil accounts for nearly 95 percent of Venezuela's export income. And oil prices — which rose from $9 a barrel when Chavez took office in 1999 to a record $156 a barrel last year — have been the key to Chavez's staying power.


But with oil prices plummeting as a result of the world recession, the petro-dollar party is over. Venezuela's narcissist-Leninist leader won't be able to continue giving away cash subsidies at home or happily handing out tens of billions of dollars in self-promotional aid packages abroad.



Inflation is already at 31 percent, by far the highest in Latin America, and food prices rose by 50 percent last year. Venezuela's economy, which grew by 4.2 percent in 2008, is projected to drop by 3 percent in 2009 and by 5.4 percent in 2010, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.


Chavez, who postponed cuts in government spending in his effort to win the referendum, will have to drastically cut public subsidies and risk growing public discontent, or he may choose to blame the "oligarchy," or the U.S. "empire" for an upcoming economic collapse and radicalize his regime.


Scenario No. 1: Oil prices return to about $70 a barrel and Venezuela continues to muddle through as an authoritarian populist country.
Under this scenario, Chavez manages to ride out the current economic crisis without massive cuts in government spending. If oil prices start inching up late this year or early in 2010, he will be able to use whatever is left of his cushion of liquid reserves to buy some time and keep the government functioning until oil reaches about $70 a barrel, which most economists say is the threshold Venezuela needs to maintain its current spending levels.


If that happens, Chavez would have a chance of winning next year's congressional elections, despite the fact that the opposition won more than 45 percent of the vote last Sunday and has been steadily gaining ground in recent years.


Under this scenario, either Chavez or the opposition could win the 2012 presidential elections. A Chavez win would allow him to carry out his stated goal to stay in power until at least 2019, even if under much more trying economic times.


Scenario No. 2: Venezuela's oil continues at its current low levels of $35 a barrel, and — amid a worsening economic crisis — Chavez tightens his grip on power to prevent an opposition victory. Venezuela becomes a full-blown dictatorship and — absent the possibility of a democratic electoral outcome — the country heads toward violence.


With continued low oil prices, Chavez won't be able to maintain his social programs, nor will he have access to foreign credit. He will have little choice but to tighten exchange controls and devalue the currency.


"We will probably see a mini devaluation, somewhere between 25 percent and 35 percent by the end of the year," says Patrick Esteruelas, a Latin America analyst with the New York-based Eurasia Group.


The devaluation will mean that Venezuela will be printing more money to pay for its government spending, which will lead to even higher inflation. And with a devalued currency, imports will become costlier and there will be even greater food shortages since Venezuela buys most of what it consumes from abroad.


All of this will lead to greater public discontent, putting the opposition in a better position to win the 2010 and 2012 elections. Chavez may use the pretext of an alleged plot against Venezuela or create a conflict with neighboring Colombia to rally support at home, close down more television networks and win elections by imposing new Cuban-styled mechanisms of political control over the population.


But the estimated half of Venezuela's population that opposes Chavez, including the country's highly politicized student movements, won't stand still. Venezuela's political divide will turn increasingly violent.


My opinion: I tend to believe that we will see the first scenario. Venezuela's foreign reserves will buy Chavez some time and oil prices are likely to inch up next year because of expectations of a world economic rebound, a terrorist attack or a new explosion of Middle Eastern violence. But no matter which of the two scenarios takes place, things are going to get worse in Venezuela over the next few years.

[losturmarbles]

And this is supposed to show what?
That after centuries of western exploitation Latin American countries are impoverished?
No doubt that is true. Venezuela is taking positive steps, and have improved conditions. Whatever benefit was to be derived from oil went to the benefit of the country, not to line the pockets of a few opportunists.
Compare Venezuela's progress to others in the region and similar situation.

it shows "how to survive and prosper" (with an emphasis on survive)
60% of the population in poverty, 28% in extreme poverty.
32% lack adequate sanitation, 17% lack access to drinking water.
21% of children under five malnourished, health care facilities and schools racially profiling.

i just find it funny that you prop up chavez like he's some hero to the venezuelan people and an "example" of what kind of country we should strive to be.

the standard of living in venezuela is over a century behind the US.
and the small strides its made at improving are from selling oil to the evil capitalists. lol but that's not "selling out" is it?

[durito]

The reasons US and idiots hate Chavez are
1. he was popularly elected
2. he survived a cia backed coup
3. his highly popular in his own country
4. His country is an example of how to survive and prosper without selling out your people to western corporations.
For these reasons he's way worse than Hitler for American interests.

When was the last time you were in Venezuela?

I am as far left as they come, but Chavez is not helping that country at all.

[jon101]

People are funny they will defend that shitbag til the end, and it will be his fault!

[durito]

Caracas is now the most dangerous city in the Americas. Food shortages in Venezuela are massive and inflation is over 40% a year.


Venezuela's endangered democracy
Revolutionary justice

Apr 8th 2009 | CARACAS
From The Economist print edition
A crackdown on the opposition

AFTER winning a referendum to abolish presidential term limits on February 15th, Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, said he was embarking on the “third phase” of his “Bolivarian revolution”. On the evidence so far, one of its main traits will be the repression of dissent and the concentration of even more power in Mr Chávez’s own hands. As a result, Venezuela’s democracy is in “serious danger of collapse”, the country’s Catholic bishops said in an Easter message.

The government is picking off its main opponents one by one. Manuel Rosales, the mayor of Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second city, and the opposition’s defeated candidate in the 2006 presidential election, has gone into hiding to avoid arrest on corruption charges. The government claims he has left the country, although his family and his lawyers deny this.

Officials say he should defend himself in court. But since Mr Chávez has said he would personally jail Mr Rosales, he can hardly expect a fair trial. The president already controls the judiciary. But a bill soon to become law sets up a new executive-dominated judicial commission which would rank higher than the supine supreme court.

On April 2nd, General Raúl Baduel, a former defence minister, was arrested at gunpoint in front of his wife by military-intelligence agents. Also accused of corruption, he was a key ally of Mr Chávez but has been treated by the regime as a traitor since he went into opposition 18 months ago. Several other opposition leaders, as well as former chavista politicians, face similar accusations. Others have been banned from standing for election on the same grounds. Yet Mr Chávez shows no inclination to investigate the many claims of corruption concerning his government.

He has been even less subtle with Antonio Ledezma, an opponent who was elected mayor of Caracas last year. His offices have been taken over by chavista mobs. A law is being rushed through parliament to render his post largely symbolic, by creating a powerful, appointed vice-president for Caracas. According to Mr Ledezma, the government “is acting outside the constitution,” while the courts are more like “firing-squads”.

He was referring in particular to the sentencing on April 3rd of three of the capital’s former police chiefs to 30 years in jail without parole. Accused, without evidence, of complicity in the murder of several chavistas who died during a coup attempt in 2002, they have already spent years in windowless cells.

The government also has plans to tighten legal controls on the media. New government-controlled workers’ councils will undermine the trade unions. A planned “international co-operation law” would make it hard for human-rights groups to obtain foreign funding.

Mr Ledezma this week tried to deliver a letter to parliament protesting against the new law for Caracas. He was halted by security forces, tear-gassed and sprayed with a red liquid. Tarek el Aissami, the interior minister, said he should have sought written permission—to march through the streets he is supposed to be governing. One way and another, Mr Chávez is doing his best to prove the bishops’ point.

[DwightShrute]

The reasons US and idiots hate Chavez are
1. he was popularly elected
2. he survived a cia backed coup
3. his highly popular in his own country
4. His country is an example of how to survive and prosper without selling out your people to western corporations.
For these reasons he's way worse than Hitler for American interests.

WOW????!!!!!

[GetRich911]

People all over the world don't have any respect for the clown. I know I don't.

More like most people do respect him

[GetRich911]

By your post, I can already tell that you very bitter, lack proper knowledge, and have very little tolerance for people not like yourself. Unfortunately for you, people like you are becoming extinct. It's also funny how you would mention hitler because you and him have so much in common..... Oh and please dare me to elaborate!

100% Correct

[andywend]

RenoCool is a shining example of how dangerous the extreme left-wing of the democratic party really is.

He spent the last 8 years trashing his own President. Now that Bush is gone, he is moving on to praising Hugo Chavez and wants the United States of America to start acting more like Venezuela.

Our voting system needs to change. While everyone over the age of 18 should still be allowed to vote, the weight of each vote should be directly related to the amount of income taxes paid by the individual.

[obama our lord]

Caracas is now the most dangerous city in the Americas.

Worse than Colon, Panama or Juarez, Mexico?

[reno cool]

RenoCool is a shining example of how dangerous the extreme left-wing of the democratic party really is.

He spent the last 8 years trashing his own President. Now that Bush is gone, he is moving on to praising Hugo Chavez and wants the United States of America to start acting more like Venezuela.

Our voting system needs to change. While everyone over the age of 18 should still be allowed to vote, the weight of each vote should be directly related to the amount of income taxes paid by the individual.

no need to trash Bush. I'm happy to trash 200 years of ongoing foreign policy which the retard merely expanded on. I'm hoping that Obama starts to turn the corner. The reactionaries need not worry because the chances of that are small.

[jon101]

Bush sucks as much as Obama sucks.PERIOD.

[Bradyd]

[quote=andywend;1773533]RenoCool is a shining example of how dangerous the extreme left-wing of the democratic party really is.

He spent the last 8 years trashing his own President. Now that Bush is gone, he is moving on to praising Hugo Chavez and wants the United States of America to start acting more like Venezuela.

Our voting system needs to change. While everyone over the age of 18 should still be allowed to vote, the weight of each vote should be directly related to the amount of income taxes paid by the individual.[/quote]

That's a very stupid idea.. And you would be surpised to find out the number of "wealthy" individuals who voted for Obama as opposed to McCain. Got any more suggestions that change the voting system to produce the results you want??

[Bradyd]

Bush sucks as much as Obama sucks.PERIOD.

How does bush "suck"? How does Obama "suck"?

[SBR Lou]

I am as far left as they come,

No way.

[obama our lord]

How does bush "suck"? How does Obama "suck"?

Don't know about Bush, but you could ask Larry Sinclair about Obama.

[Bradyd]

Don't know about Bush, but you could ask Larry Sinclair about Obama.

The way I see it, based on what I hear on this board:

Reagan gets Too Much credit
Bush Doesn't get Enough credit
And with Obama, who the heck knows, it's too early to tell.

[durito]

No way.

How much of your $12 an hour did you piss away to the books this week?

[BatemanPatrickl]

How much of your $12 an hour did you piss away to the books this week?

Here we go again. Durito is going to tell us how wealthy he is and how Dr. Bob has made him so much money. Same guy who left America because he couldn't make it.

[jon101]

Bush sucks because him and the neocons got us into an unwinnable war, and trashed the economy.

Obama sucks because he raises taxes on the poor (SCHIP), and panders to petty dictators who insult him publicly and is spineless.

[Data]

Our voting system needs to change. While everyone over the age of 18 should still be allowed to vote, the weight of each vote should be directly related to the amount of income taxes paid by the individual.

I don't like this idea, it may produce too many possibilities for abusing the system. On the other hand, I find it reasonable to strip voting privileges from the recipients of any financial aid from the government. I find it even more reasonable to keep the voting system as it is but completely eliminate any financial help by the government. As none of this will happen anyway, that is just theoretically speaking.

[jon101]

Good! That will stop all the welfare coons from voting in assholes.

[Bradyd]

I don't like this idea, it may produce too many possibilities for abusing the system. On the other hand, I find it reasonable to strip voting privileges from the recipients of any financial aid from the government. I find it even more reasonable to keep the voting system as it is but completely eliminate any financial help by the government. As none of this will happen anyway, that is just theoretically speaking.

Let's not stop at individuals, let's add in the states too. States with the least recipients are the most powerful. While we are at it, people who recieve loans for any reason should be added to the list also. Wait, how would that work? That's right, it wouldn't! No matter how much money you or I may have, that doesn't make us any better than someone who is not as lucky. Creating an official system that allows people to be judge on how much they make is absurd. We are ALL created equal!

[Data]

I am not following your logic with the states and with the loans, please elaborate. Since you oppose the idea, would you also support giving voting rights to the children? Do you follow my analogy?

[durito]

Every single person in the USA receives assistance from the government in some form or another.

[Bradyd]

Every single person in the USA receives assistance from the government in some form or another.

That was my entire point.

[Bradyd]

I am not following your logic with the states and with the loans, please elaborate. Since you oppose the idea, would you also support giving voting rights to the children? Do you follow my analogy?

Quoting durito:
Every single person in the USA receives assistance from the government in some form or another.

Not to mention states...

[losturmarbles]

there shouldnt be voting privileges based on income tax because that would validate the income tax as a morally acceptable tax.
however, the parasite class of america that pays negative tax should in no way be allowed to use the ballot box to continue to put people in power that will seize money from actual tax payers to "spread the wealth".
if you pay no federal tax, fine you have no say who gets elected.

secondly, there is no right to vote for president. nor should there be. we should stop the charade of the popular vote for president and return the country back to federalism like it originally was for the first 30-40 years following the ratifying of the constitution.
people should be voting in local elections, state elections and should know who the fuk these people are. let the states govern their own people. the only federal representative that you should be voting for is your congressman in the house. the senate belongs to the states.

then states that want to legalize drugs, legalize gay marriage, criminilze abortion, etc can do what they want.

[losturmarbles]

I am not following your logic with the states and with the loans, please elaborate. Since you oppose the idea, would you also support giving voting rights to the children? Do you follow my analogy?

dont worry data, the kid doesnt understand logic so you wont get a rational response, if one at all.

[Bradyd]

dont worry data, the kid doesnt understand logic so you wont get a rational response, if one at all.

Care to debate me on that? I've probably been one the most rational people on this board. For every, I mean every thing I state I bring facts into it. So for someone who probably never seen a post from me before today to say I'm not rational, makes me think that you are one of those people who get's angry and bitter when I disagree with what you have to say. Show me where I have ever been irrational?

[DwightShrute]

there shouldnt be voting privileges based on income tax because that would validate the income tax as a morally acceptable tax.
however, the parasite class of america that pays negative tax should in no way be allowed to use the ballot box to continue to put people in power that will seize money from actual tax payers to "spread the wealth".
if you pay no federal tax, fine you have no say who gets elected.

secondly, there is no right to vote for president. nor should there be. we should stop the charade of the popular vote for president and return the country back to federalism like it originally was for the first 30-40 years following the ratifying of the constitution.
people should be voting in local elections, state elections and should know who the fuk these people are. let the states govern their own people. the only federal representative that you should be voting for is your congressman in the house. the senate belongs to the states.

then states that want to legalize drugs, legalize gay marriage, criminilze abortion, etc can do what they want.

also, I would ban TV or any other advertising during elections in order for people who are truly interested in the issues to go see their candidates in live forums or debates. Prevent any party buying an election. Put a ban of any reporting of poll results until the last vote is counted in the west coast.